The Graphic design industry is worth a staggering $43.4 billion in 2022 and yet remains an easy to start fields requiring little to no capital and promises infinite earnings in return.
How much you earn from this field is down to several factors like:
- Technical Skill: The ability to harness powerful features of design software like photoshop to create stunning visuals.
- Design Proficiency: The understanding of basic design principles such as typography, minimalism, and color theory for delivering professional and aesthetically pleasing results.
- Client Management: Excelling not only in technical and design aspects but also in clear, friendly, and professional communication with clients for recurring projects and referrals.
- Productivity: How to think creatively and execute design ideas in a timely manner , ensuring you move from one project to the next swiftly.
- Financial Management: Knowing how to maximize your earnings to build wealth or invest in your career.
These are all important aspects of becoming a successful graphic designer. The best way to start learning everything you need to become a successful designer is to start feeding yourself with materials covering the above aspects keeping in mind that everyone’s journey is unique and instead of following a rigid path, it’s essential to grasp the lessons and adapt them to suit your circumstances.
In this article, we’ve curated 9 exciting, insightful, and engaging video tutorials to help you learn graphic design comprehensively. These tutorials cover a wide range of topics, from the technical aspects like software usage to softer aspects such as design principles.
Fasten your seatbelt for an amazing dive into these videos that will equip you to become a successful designer.
Let’s start now.
1. Beginner’s Guide to Graphic Design – Gareth David
Gareth is a 10 years experienced designer based in the UK, with experience working fulltime, freelance and freelance with agencies. His wealth of experience is available for free on YouTube as a a46 video course. It’s not the length of the course that makes it a must watch but the breakdown of concepts from what graphic design is to it’s principles.
The videos are broken into 4 sections: graphic design theory, considering a graphic design careers, becoming a graphic design & graphic design and beyond
Watch for: an in-depth understanding of graphic design principles, skills design theory and career.
2. Graphic Design FULL Course | Becoming An Advanced Designer – Satori Grpahics
Pro designers aren’t known for their skills with the pen tool but their thinking and in this tutorial satori takes you on modules designed to elevate your design thinking. There is for instance an example of transforming a flyer displaying “hand washing with soap and water” to ” brains made of bar soap”!
Mastering this skill i.e abstract connections, enables designers connect dots people overlook resulting in outstanding designs without the complex use of software.
watch for: Advanced design thinking and application in design projects.
3. How To Use Canva For BEGINNERS! [FULL Canva Tutorial 2023] – Natalia Kalinska
Canva is a software with easy to use templates for graphic design. It’s touted as a tool only non-designers use but creativity and technical know how is actually required to create amazing designs using this tool. As an added bonus canva is fully optimized for mobile meaning designers without access to high end laptops for graphic design can create eye catching graphics on mobile. Natalia Kalinska video teaches the full use of this powerful feature from sign ups to template customization
If you’re a beginner looking to master the use of Canva, you’re in the right place; it comprehensively covers the latest features and techniques, including topics such as creating curved text in Canva, uploading audio to Canva, and utilizing the Content Planner within the platform. An excellent know-how for designers doubling as social media managers.
Watch for : How to use the powerful edting tool – canva to create eye-catching designs without the use of high end gadgets.
4. How To Select Colors: Step By Step- Flux Academy by Matt Brunton
Flux academy is “on a mission to help web designers around the globe make a great living from their creativity and passion by providing in-demand skills from world-class instructors — no matter where you live.
The video: How to select colors step by step with instructor matt brunton is a must watch for graphic designers on any level but more so for beginners. In it’s 41 minute duration Matt takes viewers on a step-by- step process for choosing colors, exposing them to concepts applicable to any projectwith his four question guide around 1 constraints 2. Guidance 3. purpose and emotion.
If you’re a designer struggling with color theory and looking for a simplified yet engaging way to master this aspect of design then this video is for you.
Watch for : Proven formulas for making smart color choices for any projects.
5. Graphic Design Course- Ceaser Graphix
Ceasear is a Nigerian bred graphics designer popularly known for engaging social media designs and in his graphic design tutorial explores graphic design from a project based approach. He critiques designs, calling out what’s wrong, what can be done better and proceeds to redo some of these designs himself.
His method enables you learn in real time the wrong use of design principles. You can Watch Ceaser reapply these wrongly used or simply add new ones during his 26 video training course designed to help you go from beginner to pro!
Watch for: Application of design principles… what works and doesn’t.
6. Photoshop Tutorials
Prince Meyson is a renowned beauty and portrait photographer, as well as a filmmaker based in Canada. He’s a pro in the use of Photoshop for image editing and color grading a must-know skill for graphics designers intent on an expansive career.
We recommend watching this video for a grasp on Photoshop for image editing from working with skin tones to retouching skin .
Enjoy prince’s dynamic steps on photo retouching, learn techniques like frequency separation, color grading and hair clean-ups throughout his 93 video lessons on image retouching.
watch for: How to retouch images professionally for use in graphic design posters.
7. Photoshop Full Course Tutorial – learnit
Learnit are the 25 years experts on several software including photoshop and In this 6 hour length course deliver a lively step by step guide on the use of this powerful software.
Viewers start by exploring the interface and workspace and swiftly delve into creating a new document, basic image adjustments, and the essentials of working with layers, text, and typography.
Subsequently, you’ll move on to learning various color correction methods, crafting masks, and utilizing filters, including an overview of basic filter options. As you progress into the advanced class, more intricate topics like layer comps, blending modes, advanced selection methods, 3D are handled. It’s the perfect course for anyone wanting clear step by step path to learning photoshop.
Watch for: A progressive guide on the use of photohsop with exercise files for mastering lessons learnt.
8. Adobe Illustrator Crash Course 2023 (for complete beginners)
In 46 minutes matt takes you through the Adobe illustrator software showing you its interface and the use of powerful features like the pen and shape tool. Illustrator isn’t the go to for graphic design as Photoshop is but there are special use cases for this tool which photoshop doesn’t excel at e.g print .
9. Graphic Design Tutorial For Beginners | Graphic Design (Full Course)- My Lesson
An 11 hour long course on mastering Graphic design principles through real life cases. Unlike the one hour long courses in this list , this graphic design course for beginners by my lesson packs real life scenarios to help you understand graphic design better.
This series of four courses is designed to introduce students to the essential skills needed for creating advanced graphic design. The courses cover topics such as the design process, the historical context of design, and effective communication through the use of images and typography.
Watch for : Developed in collaboration with the California Institute of the Arts, the Graphic Design Tutorial by My Lessons is an advanced resource tailored for designers seeking to delve into advanced concepts in graphic design and explore their practical applications.
Learn Graphic design, Earn and Grow
Graphic designers with decades of experience learn new tricks each year ; there are photoshop updates for instance that compel learning new skills , developments in graphic design like AI which encourage learning too. The point is graphic design is like life itself; you are continually learning and no one has a black belt in this field.
There are hacks to learning though, and spending decades on the same step is a no-no with easily accessible resources to help you thrive . The videos above are such resources and you can level up your skills and thinking through them.
Want something more concentrated where each single video above is probably a topic? then check out courses like
- shaw’s academy graphic design courses on a budget with a professional diploma attached
- Graphic design by Fly bundle pro
- Graphic Design courses by Udemy
- GoMy code Graphic design course
- Graphic Design Course by Coursera
Need something breezy engaging and insightful then check out our learning materials on Typography, color psychology, minimalism . You can also grow your online marketing skills with free reads on Social media for graphic designers , LinkedIn Success for Graphic Designers: How to Grow your reach smartly , and LinkedIn Success for Graphic Designers: How to Grow your reach smartly
Read now and enjoy growing !
Thanks NGD. Always helping.